CHAPTER VI
the Entregador and the towns
Functions of the entregador. Contact with town authorities. Inspection and pro-
tection of the cafiadas. Restraint of marauders. Supervision of pastures, enclo-
sures, and commons. Conflicts with the Cortes and with towns. Exemptions from
the entregadores’ visitations. Residencias or hearings of complaints. Restrictions
upon entregadores by higher courts, Cortes, and town leagues.
The first period of the history of the entregador — that which we
have just been examining — was concerned with the founding and
fostering of the office by the crown, and the culmination of its
power under the absolutism of the first Hapsburgs. The second
period deals largely with the struggle to maintain the prestige of
the Mesta and its magistrate against the towns and the land-
holders, but in this the entregador met with less and less success
as the waning strength of his once autocratic royal ally slowly
crumbled away in the seventeenth century.
This disintegration of the monarchy, and the unchecked opera-
tion of the ancient Spanish predilection for separatism, spelled
disaster for so unified and nationalized an institution as the Mesta.
It was impossible for that body to function without the support
of a strongly centralized administrative machine. We must,
therefore, turn to an examination of the vital part played by the
corps of entregadores in that machine, with special reference to
the organization of this itinerant judiciary and its contact with
local interests — the number of judges, their jurisdiction and
functions, and the chief phases of their conflicts with the towns.
The earliest documents dealing with these magistrates give no
definite indication of their number, but the references to their
itineraries, which lay along the canadas, or sheep highways, offer
a basis for reasonably acceptable conjectures. It is known, for
example, that two entregadores represented the Mesta in its
negotiations with the Order of Calatrava, these two being “ the
86
the Entregador and the towns
87
ones who were serving at the time for the king.” 1 Further ev-
idence upon the probable number of entregadores in the mediaeval
period is found in the first extant commission of an entregador,
which was issued in 1300. The recipient was to serve “ in the
canada of Cuenca . . . along the routes covered by the flocks
from that section,” 2 and there is ample evidence to show that
each of the other three great sheep highways was assigned in a
like manner to an entregador. In 1378 the city government of
Câceres and representatives of the Mesta agreed upon a contrata
fixing the jurisdiction of the “ entregador for the shepherds of the
canada of Leon.” 3 Similar references are to be found to entrega-
dores of “ the canada Segoviana, the Toledana, and that of Mon-
tearagon.” 4 There was at first, apparently, one entregador for
each quadrilla or Mesta district,5 and the highways leading south-
ward therefrom; but the practice soon developed of making the
assignments by bishoprics instead of by canadas. This may have
increased the number of entregadores slightly, though these
ecclesiastical units were frequently grouped so as to cover districts
approximately equal to the quadrillas.6
During the later Middle Ages the size of the districts assigned
to the different entregadores varied from one bishopric to ten or
twelve. In the latter case there was a redistribution or farming
out to subordinates.7 As was indicated above, there is no means
of ascertaining the exact number of active entregadores previous
to the sixteenth century, but by about 1500 it had become defin-
itely fixed at six.8 Their districts were assigned to them by the
President of the Mesta, namely the senior member of the Royal
Council: a further extension of the control of the entregador by
1 Acad. Hist., Ms. Salazar, I-41, fols. 239-240.
2 Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, Becerro, fols. 25-27. See p. 19.
3 Bib. Nac. Madrid, Ms. 430, fols. 103-108.
4 Arch. Hist. Nac., Calatrava Docs. Reales, iii, 163 (1306).
6 See above, p. 51.
• Acad. Hist., Ms. E-127, fols. 183-185, 191-192: assignments of entregadores
to bishoprics, corresponding to the quadrillas of Cuenca and Soria, dated 1480 and
t481.
7 Arch. Mesta, B-ι, Baeza, 1432, and G-2, Guadalupe, 1425, give instances of
entregadores assigned to the bishoprics of Jaen and Plasencia.
8 Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, leg. 12, no. 5: a commission of 1509.